I went to high school in West Chester and, once I got a car, I discovered that I was a city mouse. I fell in love with Cincinnati around the time I fell in love with photography. Coming to Provident Camera was a pilgrimage for me. It was the first place I drove to in the city by myself, so it meant adulthood. It was a place filled with people (workers and customers alike) who had as much passion for photography as I did, so it meant I wasn't alone.

Cincinnati's beloved linebacker Dhani Jones will have an exhibit of his photographs on display at Country Club this Friday. Aside of crushing Steelers players, Jones is also the star of the Travel Channel series Dhani Tackles the Globe, in which he participates in the sports of local communities around the world in an attempt to immerse himself in their culture. His photography centers around his travels.

“Light
painting and graffiti are very similar,” says Matt Treece, 23-year-old local photographer
and light painter. “I realized this when I found myself hopping through a
shattered first story window on the backside of an abandoned factory on the East Side at 2:30 a.m., alone, with my backpack on, creeping around in the
darkness looking for a good spot.”

Treece is searching for that “magical spot.” He doesn’t risk the charge of vandalism
like graffiti artists, but he still risks a trespassing charge with every foray
into the night.

Light painting is a photography technique that involves moving a camera or adding a light source while operating with a slow shutter speed. The resultant images include colorful, swirly lines and other creative effects. Like
graffiti artists, “both of us trespass illegally. Both of us are night owls.
Both of us have explored tunnels, creeks, bridges and abandoned buildings and
have gained such a good understanding about the layout of the city,” Treece says.

Suffice
it to say, Treece’s understanding of all the nooks and crannies of the city is
far more in-depth than the average daylight city dweller.

Before
his nightly jaunt into the darkness, Treece packs his equipment bag. At first
glance, you wouldn’t think anything is out of the ordinary. Treece stuffs a Nikon
D90 camera, remote shutter release, Nikon SB-600 Flash and two tripods into the
main compartment of the bag. But the smaller compartments receive the stranger
tools of the trade.

All
that’s missing is the party favors. At this point, it’s almost unclear if he’s
going to a rave or going out to light paint.

Treece almost forgets the most important tool: batteries — lots of them.

Light
painting hasn’t always been Treece’s passion, however. “I’ve always been
interested in art, but my interest in light painting started sometime around
May or June of last year,” he says. “I was browsing the Internet randomly and
saw a picture of what looked like a spinning waterfall of sparks. I had seen
light painting prior to this photo, but it really didn’t click that these
[light painters] were using super long exposures and crazy light sources to
create works of art.”

That
night, Treece spent hours reading up tutorials on the website
lightpaintingphotography.com and a particular online community that called
itself “the light junkies.” There he
learned that it was plausible to make his own contribution to the light
painting community.

Not
all places are created equal in the light painting community. Living in
Cincinnati is both wonderful and a pain. Clifton Heights, Treece’s main stomping
ground, provides him with an incredible amount of light pollution, which can be
attributed to the area’s attempt to curb crime activity.

Cincinnati
still provides an ample amount of opportunity to create. “[Cincinnati] has some
of the most bad-ass tunnels built in the early 1900s. … Cincinnati also has a
creek system, which over time had to be cemented because of industrial waste,” Treece says. “These tunnels and channels have created some of the best spaces for
light painting.”